Quid Pro Quo
by Chainsaw Demigoddess
Summary: In which Otonashi is unimpressed, Hinata is sheepish, Yui is snarky, and Kanade inexplicably knows Latin. Hinata's day went downhill the moment he smashed a ball through that window. Implied Otonashi/Kanade, Hinata/Yui, Yuri/Noda. T for safety.
1. Quid Pro Quo

**Hey. ChainDemi here. I haven't posted anything on here for ages and ages and ages. I assure you all that I am still working on my two Bionicle fics on top of my novel and everything else, so yeah. Angel Beats finished yesterday, so I wanted to celebrate the end of a pretty damn good anime.**

**The pairings here are Hinata/Yui, Otonashi/Kanade, and Yuri/Noda. I didn't intend to put in the Yuri/Noda but my boyfriend asked me to and I like the pairing so yeah. Despite all the pairings this isn't really a romance fic, just warning you all. Those of you who want sappy romance, m'afraid you may want to watch episodes 10 and 13 again. I am not good at romance.**

**A few notes to be made: **

**1. This oneshot is set post episode 13, and contains spoilers for episodes ten and thirteen. **

**2. In the ending of #13 it only implies that Otonashi meets up with Kanade, but I thought that it was fairly possible that he'd met up with other ex-members of the Battlefront before or after then. I shall make this very clear: They do not remember the events of the anime. I considered changing their names, since it would be logical that they wouldn't have the same names, but I was too lazy.**

**3. Latin is on no accounts a dead language. Latin is cool. Latin is everywhere. Viva Lingua Latina!**

* * *

Smash.

A baseball bat fell to the grass with a muffled thud as the boy who has swung it stared mutely in the direction the ball had gone, and the smashed window of the house next door to the pitch.

"You should probably go apologise, Hinata." The orange-haired male standing a few metres away from him interrupted, arms folded. Otonashi Yuzuru had not been particularly happy about being dragged into helping his friend practice- he had medical textbooks to peruse, after all, and if you could say anything about Otonashi, it was that he was dedicated to his goal.

Hinata gave him a woeful look, bracing his hands on his knees. "Aw, man. What if it's my accounting teacher and I've killed one of her cats? She'll give me detention for the rest of my life and I'll still be writing lines when you're retired and married to Tachibana with twenty-six grandchildren."

Otonashi turned faintly pink. "I was going to come with you," he grumbled, "but since you've kept teasing me about Kanade even after that incident with her aunt, I think I won't."

"Damn. Fine, I'll go." Hinata straightened, grinning confidently at his very unimpressed friend, and set off towards the house with the smashed window. The gate was locked from the inside, and Hinata didn't particular feel like the ten minute walk it would take to approach the house from the front. Making up his mind, he climbed over the fence and walked around the side of the house, turning the corner and nearly colliding with a washing line weighed down by what looked like a ton of soaking wet laundry.

Skirting around the wire frame and it's load of saturated clothing, Hinata then proceeded to nearly tread on a flowerbed, narrowly avoid tangling his foot in a coiled garden hose, and then nearly collapse on the veranda out of sheer relief.

"That wasn't a front yard, that was an obstacle course." he muttered, running his fingers through his hair and looking back warily at the cluttered space of lawn. It didn't look like any front yard he had ever met. It looked like a walking junkyard had stopped to throw up.

Hinata knocked on the front door and waited, shifting uncomfortably. Sure, he'd had balls land on other peoples property before, but he'd never broken any windows. That only ever happened in stories, not in real life, and certainly not to him.

A weary-looking woman answered the door, blinking up at him as if she wasn't quite sure why he was there. "Um, sorry, ma'am, I was playing baseball on the pitch over there with one of my friends and I hit the ball through one of your windows, I'm so sorry, I can pay to replace the window if you want, uh…"

Hinata mentally facepalmed. He'd said the whole sentence in one breath, and he most certainly couldn't afford to pay for a new window. He'd have to ask for an advance on his allowance for the next six months, and that still probably wouldn't be enough.

The woman standing in the doorway nodded. "I'm sure we can make some arrangements about paying for the window. Please follow me- you probably want your ball back." With that, she turned on her heel and walked away. Hinata hurried after her. Why was she being so nice about it? Maybe she was taking him further inside to murder him and sell his organs on the black market? Maybe she was a member of some psychotic religious cult and she was going to brainwash him?

_And maybe,_ a small voice that sounded more like Otonashi every day began, _she's just taking you to the room with the damage so she can give you back your ball and you can work out a way to pay for the window to be fixed?_

_Voice-in-my-head-that-sounds-like-Otonashi __is probably right_, Hinata sighed, turning into the room that apparently had the broken window inside.

There was a dustpan, filled with shards of glass, lying on a side table, and further shards lying on the floor. The room was fairly large, occupied with a few shelves containing books, stuffed animals, and a shocking-pink digital clock, a table with two plain wooden chairs, another table occupied by the dustpan and a television showing a baseball game, and a bed. The bed wouldn't have looked out of place in a hospital, with white covers and a white frame, and a girl in her pyjamas sitting up, supported by pillows, regarding him with an odd look on her thin face.

"So you're the completely stupid, thick-headed clumsy chickenhead who smashed a ball through my window?" she asked suddenly, tilting her head toward the ball lying innocuously on the floor. Hinata picked it up sheepishly. The girl's demeanour belied her fragile, bedridden appearance, it seemed.

"Hey, don't call me a chickenhead, it was just an accident. I was playing baseball and hit the ball wrong and it sailed off here before I could do anything, and I was going to pay for the window. What did you expect me to do, run after the ball and catch it with my teeth?" he replied, slightly indignant at this girl insulting him for no real reason.

Her eyes went wide. "You can actually DO that?" she asked, sitting up a bit straighter. It began to dawn on Hinata that this girl was not in bed because she was taking an afternoon nap. She had not moved anything below her neck, at all.

"No, I can't. I was being sarcastic- um, about the window. I can earn the money to pay for it to be replaced, I just can't pay you right now. Um…I left my friend by himself at the pitch and I don't want him to have to come after me- do you mind if I go and come back later with some money, then later again with more, so I can gradually pay you for the damage?" he turned towards the girl's mother, who smiled and nodded gratefully.

"Wait," the girl interrupted, "Wouldn't it be simpler if you can't pay us back fully, to pay for half of the new window and then pay for the rest some other way? Like, helping around the house or cleaning out the garden or something? I mean, you obviously can't pay for it all to get fixed anytime soon, and Mama has a tough time looking after me by herself, so it makes sense." She said, blowing a few strands of bubblegum-pink hair out of her eyes and looking up at him.

Hinata barely suppressed a sigh of relief. "Well, that's great. Um, I should probably go…" he trailed off. "I'm Hinata, by the way. Hinata Hideki. Just so you know."

She smiled brightly. "You can call me Yui." She replied, suddenly cheerful.

Hinata blinked at her. "I probably shouldn't call you by your first name…" he started nervously. She was a stranger, after all, even though he felt oddly as if he had known her sometime before.

"Yui." She repeated, a little louder. "My name is Yui."

"Okay then, Yui-san-"

"Call me Yui." The statement sounded more like a command now.

"Why?" Hinata asked, perplexed.

"Because I said so." Yui replied firmly, glaring at him through her fringe. "And because you don't seem like a stranger even though I know I haven't met you before." she added, sounding slightly embarassed.

"Um, fine then, Yui. I have to go now, so, um…bye?" Hinata edged towards the door. This was the third time he'd tried to leave. Was this girl trying to keep him here? _Well, she must be kind of lonely with only her mother for company…_ he thought, glancing back at her. Did she want him to stay?

"…Baseball, huh?" she said quietly, half-smiling.

"What?" he asked, even more perplexed than before.

For a few moments, she looked a little sad, a wistful smile on her face. "That must be cool. Can I come along and watch you play, sometime?"

"Uh…I guess?" Hinata replied. Nope, no chance of going back to the pitch anytime soon."

Her eyes lit up. "Promise?"

"Um, I promise."

"Hey! What took you so long, Hinata? We've been waiting here for half an hour!" Otonashi called, waving with the arm not around Kanade, who had obviously appeared while he was gone. She regarded him with calm golden eyes, totally unfazed by the fact that Otonashi was still waving and shouting, and that Yuri had seized her other arm and started talking to her animatedly, or that Noda was standing a few metres away, glaring at anyone unfortunate enough to pass by.

Those four people, and Yui, were among the twenty-odd people that Hinata had met over the course of his life that he felt he knew, even if they were perfect strangers. He knew they felt the same thing- it was a topic of much discussion between them.

"Sorry, I got talking to the girl who's window I accidentally smashed. She's called Yui. She worked out a way for me to pay for the window without having to get an advance on my allowance for the next two years. I help her mother around the house, clear up the garden, et cetera, and I don't get my pockets emptied." Hinata replied, letting out a relieved sigh.

"Quid pro quo." Kanade said suddenly, causing both Otonashi and Yuri to start and turn to look at her.

"Wha?" Yuri managed, confused. "Can you repeat that, only in Japanese?"

"Everybody benfits. You help me, I help you. It's Latin." Kanade clarified, half-smiling.

"Okay. Know anything else in Latin, or just that?" Otonashi asked, amused.

The white-haired girl standing next to him blinked, then raised her thin shoulders in a shrug. "A few things." She said finally.

"Like what?" Noda put in, speaking for the first time.

Kanade frowned slightly. "I know how to say 'May barbarians invade your personal space' and 'If Caesar was alive, you'd be chained to an oar.'"

Hinata's eye twitched. "Okay. I take it Yuri and Noda are here for your double movie date thing?"

Noda wheeled around to glare at him. "It's not a date!" he insisted, the colour his face was slowly turning clashing brilliantly with his hair.

"We're chaperoning to make sure these two don't get up to no good!" Yuri cut in, flustered.

Smirking, Hinata backed away from the small group, wondering idly if there was anything good on TV back at home. "I'll leave you four to that, then." he grinned, turning to leave…

…and coming face to face with a blue-haired girl wearing a scarf that nearly reached the grass.

"How shallow."

**OMAKE TIEM.**

At that moment, a brown-haired girl popped out of nowhere and began to scream incomprehensibly in English.

Yuri nudged Otonashi. "What's she saying?" she asked, staring at the ranting girl as though she'd sprouted an extra head.

Otonashi twitched. "Something about a extra-canonical full cast reunion."

-fin.

* * *

**If you've made it this far, you are officially awesome. Reviews are loved. Flames are not. I'm already harsh enough on myself, I don't need people telling me what I've already told myself. And anyway, if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all. Also, I've come across people flaming other people's work who have either nothing on their accounts and sound nigh-illiterate (please, invest in a web browser with spell-check!) and so technically have no right to be flaming anyone for writing a story they don't like when they seem unable to construct a passable sentence. Remember kids, every time you flame someone in chatspeak, an English teacher cries.**

**If for some reason you're reading this and you haven't seen Angel Beats, please go see it. It's good, even if I have now spoiled the last three episodes for you.**

**Love,  
ChainsawDemigoddess **


	2. Labra Lege

**Hi guys- It's Chainsaw Demigoddess with Chapter Two. Unfortunately, this is the penultimate chapter and Quid Pro Q****uo will be finished next instalment. This was always meant to be a short fanfiction, not a 40-chapter monstrosity. Not that I don't adore 40-chapter monstrosities. I just don't have the time, between two novels, my Bionicle fanfics, and my schoolwork.**

**The reception to this fanfic has been so good- 5 reviews, all positive! I'm amazed. One review even said this was the best fanfic of the events after Episode 13 that they'd seen. Thank you so much guys, I'm really happy. I hope this next chapter delivers!**

**Someone said in a review that I'd made TK a girl. What. I don't remember that! The characters that occurred last chapter were Yuri, Noda, Otonashi, Hinata, Kanade, Yui, and Shiina. The girl in the Omake is in fact I, the author, breaking the fourth wall. I am fond of breaking the fourth wall in omakes, if not in the story itself (read: The Toa of The Fourth Wall).**

**TK does appear in this chapter and he is in fact male. **

**LONG AUTHORS NOTE IS LONG :D**

Angel Beats! Quid Pro Quo

Chapter Two: Labra Lege.

"Tadaima!"

"Okaeri, Hideki. How was practice?" Hinata Nozomi was by no means disinterested in her sons progress- she would have preferred his talents lay in something more academic, but as long as Hideki's baseball didn't interfere with his schoolwork, it was fine by her.

Hinata winced. "Yeah, about that. I accidentally smashed a window while I was practicing." He said sheepishly, joining his mother next to the sink and taking over the dishes.

Nozomi's eyes went wide. "Please tell me you don't want an advance on your pocket money for the next two years." she said weakly, opening the doors of the pantry and scanning the inside.

"The teriyaki sauce is in the fridge, Mum. No, just for the next three months- the lady who owned the house's daughter, who's paralysed, I think, worked out a way for me to pay. I'll pay what I can now, and then work off the rest because her mother looks after her by herself and could use a hand around the house. It's like getting a job, only the hours are more flexible and the pay is not being broke until university." Hinata joked, beginning to load the dishwasher.

"I suppose so. " she replied doubtfully. "You'd better not smash any more windows, Hideki."

Hinata grinned. "Mum, you don't need to tell me twice."

"Kanade?"

"Mm?"

"You seem a bit unfocused. Are you tired?" Otonashi asked, resting a hand on her shoulder. Kanade turned to look up at him, her expression changing subtly to one of surprise. Kanade was easy to read once you realised she downplayed all of her expressions. Once you knew what to watch for, she was an open book.

"Mapo Tofu." she said after a while, the corners of her mouth twitching upwards. "But movie theatres only sell chocolate and popcorn."

Otonashi blinked. "True, that. I'm taking you out to lunch after this, so we'll have Mapo Tofu then." He replied, passing the popcorn to Noda, sitting in the seat on his other side.

"Shush, you two. The movie's about to start. Nothing ruins a movie like a couple of idiots making out in the middle of the theatre." Yuri snapped, grabbing a handful of popcorn and flicking a stray strand of magenta hair away from her eyes.

Kanade gave her an odd look. "Then, in light of the last time we went to the movies as a group, shouldn't we be more worried about you and Noda 'ruining' the movie than Yuzuru and I?"

Noda turned the colour of a stop sign and looked in the opposite direction, which happened to mean he made direct eye contact with Yuri, who was in the process of rising out of her seat to give Otonashi a good talking-to.

They started at one another for a few pregnant seconds before turning towards the screen. "Wish this goddamn movie would start." Noda muttered into his shoes, while beside him Yuri stared resolutely at the ads playing on the screen, chewing her lip and sending occasional glances at Noda.

Kanade and Otonashi exchanged smiles over their interlinked hands.

"That was awful. I'm telling everyone I know not to go to that movie. Could anyone tell me what the hell was going on for the last fifteen minutes?" Yuri asked, pulling out her headband and running her fingers through her hair.

Noda frowned. "The main guy's girlfriend was actually a bomb or something. They had two minutes to disarm her or something like that otherwise she would die."

"She was a biological time-bomb and if time ran out she would die and release a toxic gas into the atmosphere, killing the entire population of Tokyo and then some. You're right, Yuri, it was so bad it should be erased from human memory." Otonashi replied, looking back at the theatre and shuddering.

"Well, that spectacular waste of time has made me hungry. I'm going to go home and have dinner. See you guys." Noda turned on his heel and loped off. Yuri watched him go, before she noticed both Kanade and Otonashi staring at her intently.

"What?" she asked them both, blinking.

"You and Noda live very close together. Aren't you going to walk home with him?" Kanade asked, tilting her head to one side.

Yuri shook her head. "Nah, I think I'll hang around here for a while longer. My parents and my youngest two siblings are out of town and Haruhi is at a sleepover."

Otonashi put a hand on Kanade's shoulder. "Do you want to come have lunch with me and Kanade? Mastuhita 5th Dan told us there's a restaurant ten minutes walk from here that's really good."

"Mapo Tofu." Kanade interjected, nodding. "I looked at the menu on the way here."

"Uh, actually, I think I need to go somewhere and, uh, do…something…" Yuri tailed off, pausing. "Uh, bye!"

Otonashi and Kanade watched her run off, exchanging knowing looks. "She was just making an excuse to not walk home with Noda. I can't believe she thinks she has us all fooled- it's pretty obvious she holds a torch for Noda and vice versa. The tension is so thick you could slice it and put it in a sandwich." Otonashi sighed, mentally working out which way the restaurant was.

Kanade nodded. "Enough for two sandwiches." she added, the corners of her mouth quirking upwards.

"True enough." Otonashi replied, smiling. They walked in silence, crossing the road, waving to Ooyama, who was coming the other way, and turning a corner. It was a quieter area of town, with less people and cars. Otonashi was considering making small talk when a figure leapt out of the shadows.

"Kyaaaaah!"

"One, Two, Three!"

TK grinned, moonwalking across the pavement to let the duo past. Kanade let go of Otonashi's arm, which she'd grabbed onto out of fright, while Otonashi gave the blond-haired dancer a perplexed look.

"Let's Dance!" was the only response he got, along with an even wider grin. Both Otonashi and Kanade sweatdropped.

"TK, I have two left feet, so that's not such a good idea. I'll see you at school on Monday, okay?"

TK shrugged and continued to moonwalk along the pavement, humming along with the music filtering out of the music store behind him. The duo moved on, Kanade turning to wave just before they turned another corner.

"Yuzuru..."

"Yes?"

Kanade gave him a curious look. "You can dance."

"I kept treading on your feet, Kanade."

"Oh."

Hinata stood on the front porch of Yui's house, feeling like a man going to his execution. The yard was an absolute mess of old furniture, a length of hose, and various other bits of trash.

He decided he was going to sort it into things that could be cleaned up and used, things that weren't much use for anything but scrap metal and firewood, and things that needed to go into the recycling. Most of the stuff in the yard could quite easily be recycled or reused, and Hinata had no plans to cart everything to the dumpster in any case.

Battered dresser with no drawers, Firewood. Microwave, could probably be fixed up. Bent metal lawn chair, scrap metal. Half a dresser, firewood. Rusty metal frame of some variety and another lawn chair, scrap metal. Two more chairs, these made of wood, and a table to match. They were covered in cobwebs and a bit dirty, but they were usable. Box of shoujo manga, probably a good idea to save that too.

Hinata heard footsteps behind him and looked up. Yui's mother was standing in the doorway, casting a critical eye over the four piles Hinata had started to create.

"Not a bad start. I have to go out and get some groceries- would you mind staying a little longer to keep Yui company? There's nothing on the television and she's bored out of her mind."

Hinata had been hoping to get home and opened his mouth to say as much, but the stressed out expression on the woman's face changed his mind. "Uh, sure. I found these manga over here, so maybe those will keep her amused." He said weakly, picking up the box and walking up the steps.

"Thank you- I'll be back in an hour at the very most. Bye!"

He watched Yui's mother, who's name had totally escaped him, jog down to the gate, open it, and then close it behind her. Then, heaving a deep sigh, Hinata crossed the threshold, shutting the door behind him, and walked to Yui's room.

"What're you doing here, idiot?" Yui snapped, brows furrowing.

Hinata frowned back at her. "Your mother asked me to make sure you didn't die of boredom. I found this plastic box full of manga while I was cleaning. Daft thing to just chuck in the yard if you ask me, so I thought they might keep you busy."

Yui's eyes lit up, focusing on the clear plastic box tucked under Hinata's arm. Then she caught the slightly smug smile on his face and looked away, scowling.

"They'll probably be dead boring, but I need something to do." She grumbled. "I can't use my arms too well, so can you hold them up for me?"

Taken aback, the blue haired youth crossed the room to sit down next to her. "Wow, they're already sorted by volume number and series title...We'll start with this one, I guess."

The next hour was passed flipping pages, which was a little boring, but it passed the time and despite her earlier attitude, Yui seemed completely riveted, ploughing through three volumes before her mother returned.

"Well, I've got to go now. I have baseball practice in half an hour, and if I'm late my coach will dismember me with his bare hands. See you, Yui. I'll be back tomorrow to do more work on the yard, kay?"

"...Bye. Don't get hit by a car on the way there, you're so stupid you probably don't look both ways before crossing the road." Yui reminded, smiling slightly.

"Hey, I resent that. Seeya." Hinata grinned, raising a hand in a salute as he walked out the door. As he walked down the corridor, he realised that Yui had actually been quite friendly in her own strange way. She'd even smiled.

She was quite pretty when she smiled.

"Yuzuru..."

"No, Kanade. Out of the question."

"But I-!"

"Not an option. I'm paying and that's that. I was the one that asked you to lunch, I pay. You can pay next time."

"But you paid last time as well..." Kanade trailed off, looking uncertain.

Otonashi sighed. "That was a different kettle of fish. That was to thank you from saving Hinata and I from your aunt's wrath. That was to repay you. If it's any comfort, it wasn't too expensive." he elaborated, resting a hand briefly on his girlfriends shoulder as they left the restaurant.

Kanade's house was only a short walk away, if you knew a few shortcuts. They talked idly as they walked, about anything they could think of, until they came to Kanade's gate.

"I probably shouldn't come in. I don't think your father has quite forgiven me for not preventing Hinata from keeping his mouth shut." He said wryly, bending down to kiss her.

"He'll forgive you eventually. It wasn't your fault. Goodbye, Yuzuru." She smiled, fiddling with the latch on the gate until it swung open. Otonashi smiled back, watching her walk to the door and let herself in.

A few seconds later Kanade appeared in the window. He gave her a curious look. Her lips curved upwards and she mouthed something. Otonashi Yuzuru was no lip-reader, but he could quite reliably guess what she was saying.

"Love you too, Kanade."

Giving one final wave, he turned and walked away backwards, arms folded, until Kanade's house had faded from sight. He turned and found himself face to face with Shiina.

"How shallow." She tsked, turning and leaving a stunned Otonashi behind.

Fin.

OMAKE:

A manhole cover on the road rattled and then slid out of place, the brown haired girl from the day before sticking her head out of it.

"AWWWWWWWWWWK-WAAAAAAAAAAAAAARD." She stated loudly, before grabbing the cover of the manhole and replacing it, leaving Otonashi even more stunned than before.

"...What."

**Such a sappy ending to the chapter****, if you don't count the omake. Please, don't kill me, I like my head attached to my shoulders!**

**The name of Yuri's sister: SEE WHAT I DID THAR?**** I am not very funny, no siree, all my humour comes from Monty Python and TV Tropes. But still, I had a little laugh at that. In case you tropers in the audience haven't guessed, I'm one of you. Noodle Incidents for everyone!**

**Also, "Labra Lege" means "Read my lips", in reference to the exchange between Otonashi and Kanade at the end. DERP.**

**As always, flames are not welcome- they're just unconstructive and if you don't like what you're reading, just close the window unless I have made a shizzload of spelling and grammar mistakes, in which case please, please tell me so I can correct it!**

**Stay tuned for the next installment! I have mock exams soon so I need to get studying, but hopefully it won't be TOO long before I post the last chapter!**

**Reviews are much, much loved and appreciated. See that button that says "Review"? Don't hesitate to click it.**


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